very strange and marked--seem to prefer the human."

The old lady sat up crackling, for this was more than she could permit.
Her stiff silk dress emitted little sharp reports.

"We know," she answered, "that He was said to have walked in the garden
in the cool of the evening"--the gulp betrayed the effort that it cost
her--"but we are nowhere told that He hid in the trees, or anything like
that. Trees, after all, we must remember, are only large vegetables."

"True," was the soft answer, "but in everything that grows, has life,
that is, there's mystery past all finding out. The wonder that lies
hidden in our own souls lies also hidden, I venture to assert, in the
stupidity and silence of a mere potato."

The observation was not meant to be amusing. It was _not_ amusing. No
one laughed. On the contrary, the words conveyed in too literal a sense
the feeling that haunted all that conversation. Each one in his own way
realized--with beauty, with wonder, with alarm--that the talk had
somehow brought the whole vegetable kingdom nearer to that of man. Some
link had been established between the two. It was not wise, with that
great Forest listening at their very doors, to speak so plainly. The
forest edged up closer while they did so.

And Mrs. Bittacy, anxious to interrupt the horrid spell, broke suddenly
in upon it with a matter-of-fact suggestion. She did not like her
husband's prolonged silence, stillness. He seemed so negative--so
changed.

"David," she said, raising her voice, "I think you're feeling the